Why I Went to Work for Arianna

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Today, Arianna is number five, in a field of 135. She is the leading independent candidate. And she is the only viable female contender in the race. Also, her VoteArianna.com website has pulled in contributions from more than 2,100 grassroots donors -- more than all of her major competitors combined!

What's more: A true progressive could conceivably win this race. The California recall has no primary and no runoff. So with a simple plurality (25-20 percent or even less), someone could become governor of the biggest state in the nation and preside over the fifth-largest economy in the world.

If we stand together, there are enough independent and progressive Californians to win this election. Mathematically speaking, Arianna has a better chance of winning this race than Jesse Ventura had of winning his.

But the main barrier to a Ventura-style upset is not Schwarzenegger or Bustamante. It is our own cynicism and pessimism as progressives. Many who like her program are still gun-shy and shell-shocked from 2000. Rather than vote to fix the mess in Sacramento, they plan to prolong the Davis-Bustamante regime.

I ask them, "Name one good thing about Cruz Bustamante." All I get is blank stares. Then they start talking about Florida. I say, "Don't you think it is a bad sign that we have to look all the way to Florida to find a reason to support Gray Davis, who is right here in California?"

Certainly, her chances would have been better if more than one prominent Democrat were in the race. But the polls are all over the place, and they change every day. The only constant is the front-runner: not Arnold -- but "Undecided," who nets 30-plus percent every time. Plus there are 13 million eligible Californians who didn't vote in the last election. And nobody is polling them.

Remember: Not one poll showed Jesse Ventura winning in Minnesota -- not even polls taken on the day of the election. So anything could happen on October 7th.

We have one chance to break the hold of the big-money interests. The opportunity is here. All we have to do is seize it.

Van Jones is on two-month unpaid leave from the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. He is presently the Grassroots Director for Arianna Huffington for Governor.

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